Debbi Stone: Gauge, and why worry about it?

debbi_stone2  At the last meeting Debbi Stone (website here and Ravelry page here) told stories and gave examples of why worrying about stitch and row gauge is so much more important than many of us might think. I know many of you make only large or small items that don’t have to ‘fit’ anyone in particular but stitch and row gauge do matter. 

We usually just begin knitting the thing without giving any thought to how many stitches per inch the designer got when making it. “Oh, it can’t really matter for this scarf, it doesn’t have to be a certain size.”

It may not have to be a certain size but we do need to pay attdebbistoneshawlention to how many yards it took the designer to make the scarf in the first place. This is a really important reason to pay attention to how many stitches it took per inch to make the scarf.

We may not have enough yarn to make it the size we want or we may have way too much yarn left when the scarf is finished, all because we weren’t getting the same number of stitches per inch as the designer wrote on the pattern.

Personally I’ve made more things than I want to admit that weren’t the size I wanted because I didn’t pay attention to the stitch and row gauge on the pattern. It caused a lot of wasted time and effort to say nothing of the cost of the wasted yarn, and yarn is much more expensive today than it was in days of yore, for sure.

debbi_stone3 Do take the time to knit a gauge swatch. If you think of it as being a ‘really important’ part of the item, it might make it feel not so much as a ‘have to’ thing as it is ‘an important and necessary’ thing to make this scarf look better and be the size you want. Happy knitting!

Y’vonne